Eat

Japanese Soba and the Broth of Life

Published: April 26, 2012

A bowl of soba is a beautiful, exotic and delicious centerpiece for a
Japanese meal: the not-too-soft, nutty buckwheat noodles sitting in a
mahogany broth — dashi — that’s as clear and glossy as beef consommé,
not only salty and umami-complex but sweet as well. My favorite variety,
tamago toji, is egg-topped. When it’s made right, the egg is
almost foamy, soft-scrambled and tender, deliciously flavored by the
dashi, a bit of which it absorbs.

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Made by me, however — even guided by intuition, experience and recipes —
tamago toji was if not pathetic then hardly superb, a series of bad
guesses resulting in an edible batch of decently cooked noodles in a
cloudy, not-especially-good-tasting broth, with clumps of overcooked
egg.

Which made it a perfect dish to tackle with professional help, for which
I asked my friend the estimable Jean-Georges Vongerichten. He hooked me
up with a chef named Yoshitaka Nakamura, who explained that my dashi
wasn’t bad; it was simply the wrong broth for the job. Soba dashi
contains bonito flakes (dried and shaved from a fish in the tuna family
and available in every Japanese food market) but no konbu (seaweed,
which I’ve always included in dashi), and it involves soy and mirin in
far larger proportions than I ever used. With the right recipe, dashi is
a snap.

The egg technique is a bit more complicated. Let’s just say that given a
lifetime, I would never have got there on my own, though it’s pretty
easy once demonstrated. You make the broth; you cook the noodles until
just about done; and then you shock them in ice water. (You don’t see
that in Italy.) You boil the broth in a pot with a spout (imagine the
Tin Man’s oil can) and add the beaten egg one-third at a time to the
boiling mixture. (The broth must be at a boil, or the egg absorbs too
much of it and turns an execrable color.) The last third of the egg is
barely cooked; the retained heat of the broth finishes it beautifully.
Through the spout and under the egg, you pour the broth into a bowl. Add
a bit of nori, slide the egg on top and garnish with minced scallion
and serve.

That’s if you want to make one serving. In restaurants, making four
servings at once just isn’t done, and few if any people make this kind
of soba at home, which was part of the fun for me. Even if you were to
find a larger spout-fitted pot, the pouring would be ungainly. Without
that pot, it’s virtually impossible to not sully the broth with broken
egg, which ruins the appearance, if not the flavor.

After a day of experimenting at home, I solved the problem by making
extra broth and cooking the egg in that surplus after combining the
broth and noodles, then spooning the cooked egg into the bowls. Not as
elegant, perhaps, but it works.

You can serve soba by itself, of course, but why would you? This recipe
is straightforward enough that you’ll have time for a couple of simple
classics. Follow the soba with a simple salad with an Asian vinaigrette
and some salt-broiled mackerel. This fast-brining technique, used by
home cooks throughout Japan, firms up the flesh and has helped me make
mackerel lovers out of several friends. Finish with a refreshing
green-tea granita. Don’t forget the sake.

2012年4月23日 星期一

7 Foods You Really Should Eat Before You Die

The food list that's gone viral, 100 Foods to Eat Before You Die, is lame. Here’s a much better one

Stupid things are sometimes far more compelling to me than smart
ones. For instance, I seldom think about the themes in Krzysztof
Kieslowski’s epic Three Colors trilogy, but to this day I don’t understand why, in The Blues Brothers,
the Good Ol’ Boys arrive at Bob’s Country Bunker at 3 a.m., ready to
play a show in the middle of the night. Likewise, I can’t stop thinking
about the idiocy that is the latest viral food meme, the 100 Foods to Eat Before You Die list that keeps bubbling up on Facebook.
The list, which has been ricocheting around for several months, looks
like it took about six minutes to think up. You could have created the
whole thing while listening to “Aqualung.” It’s simply a bunch of
unconnected foods, listed alphabetically, without any kind of qualifier.
Oh, I’ve had a piece of supermarket sushi; therefore I can cross No.
31, eel, off my list. What’s next? Eggs Benedict. The fact that almost
any food can be wonderful or inedible, depending on where it came from,
how old it is, who cooked it and approximately 800 other factors, seems
not to have occurred to the person who wrote it, or to the millions of
people who have passed it along viral social media. It’s the list of a
chain-gang prisoner who never expects to have anything but salt pork and
hardtack for the rest of his days. But it got me thinking.
(MORE:Ozersky: The Problem with the American Steak House)
In the 1980s, a man named E.D. Hirsch had a best seller called Cultural Literacy.
In the book were a number of key referents that every literate person
was expected to know — who Emma Bovary was, what a catch-22 was and so
on. I think that there probably are certain culinary dishes so
universally admired, and so much a part of our global heritage, that you
should be considered something of a rube if you haven’t eaten them. I
don’t have room here to submit 100, but I’ve thought about it and come
up with seven. The list excludes geographically scarce delicacies like
Scottish langoustines or Umbrian truffles, which are magnificent, but by
no means the stuff without which a life can be called incomplete. And
weird or hard-to-like dishes are out too: the world is full of acquired
tastes, but nobody regrets on their deathbed not having eaten more
durian. These foods listed below, however, are the ones you should eat
often and rely on for your happiness and sustenance. You need to have
the good version of them before you die — or sooner.Hot fresh bread. Freshly baked bread, still hot and
liberally slathered with salted butter, is one of the best experiences
the world affords. And it’s something that a lot of people never
experience. Hell, even I only rarely experience it. We buy sliced bread
in bags, or whole breads from supermarket bakeries, but hardly ever get
to feel it, pull at it, smell it, and burn our hands on it when it’s
fresh. And it’s never the same after.Where to get it: Your local bakery, early in the
morning. Also, some grocery stores sell frozen par-baked breads that are
easy to finish in your oven.Pit barbecue. There are very few places outside your
backyard where you can eat pork or beef that has been exposed to low
heat and soft smoke for a long, long time. (Restaurants tend to nuke
baby back ribs in the microwave, or smoke them in a gas oven that has a
twig or two in it somewhere, before slathering them in sweet, sticky
sauce.) To do, say, smoked brisket right, to get it meltingly tender but
also deeply smoky, you need to cook it for 15 hours — and then it only
tastes really great for the first 20 minutes or so. It’s not fair, I
know. But that makes it even more worth it.Where to get it: Learn to make it yourself. I recommend using one of these (unless you can get one of these.)
(MORE:Barbecuers, Unite! Why Gas Grills Are Evil)Raw milk cheese. Imagine that the only beers you had
tasted were Coors Light, Bud Light, Old Milwaukee and Miller Genuine
Draft. That’s roughly your situation as a cheese eater in America, where
the cheeses we eat are all pasteurized, an unnecessary treatment that
kills flavor along with germs. Blame the USDA. That’s what the dairies
do, and they make a pretty compelling case.Where to get it: There’s a black market. Get online and find it.Georgia peaches, New Jersey corn, California melons, Oregon morels, New England blackberries. You get the point.
You can get any of these types of foods in any supermarket, of course,
but shipping them halfway across the country (or the world) renders them
dead, shameful simulacra of what they used to be. You need to pluck
these things off tree branches or out of the dirt they live in, and
experience them in the full bloom of their distinct flavor. I know this
sounds obvious, and yes, it’s been said a million times, but that
doesn’t make it any less true — or any easier to experience.Where to get it: Georgia, New Jersey, California …Prime beef. As I pointed out in my steak-house column
last week, few diners outside of New York City and the military get to
eat real “prime” beef. (Grade inflation, it seems, isn’t just a problem
in schools.) Prime steak doesn’t need to be drowned in butter or A.1.
Steak Sauce, like lesser meats are; it tastes — and, more importantly,
it feels — special. The abundant amounts of intramuscular fat, instantly
recognizable to a USDA inspector, make it so. There’s nothing like it
in the world — not in France, not in Argentina, not in Kobe. America’s
singularly lush, sweet, copiously marbled beef has a mineral tinge to it
like the taste of blood in your mouth. Accept no substitutes!Where to get it: I can vouch for the quality of the steaks sold online by Lobel’s, one of the oldest New York City butchers.
(MORE:Ozersky: Recipes for the Black-Iron Heart of America)Great olive oil and balsamic vinegar. You hear so
many cooks go on and on about olive oil, and there are so many brands of
expensive, gorgeously packaged olive oil that it’s hard to believe how
crappy almost all of it is. Half the time it’s adulterated with vegetable oil;
the rest of the time it’s stale. Even among the few fresh oils, many
are bitter and grassy when what you want is nutty and sweet. Likewise,
balsamic vinegar is a “gourmet” ingredient that is generally dull and
nearly always watery. The real item is amazing, acidic and as
concentrated as pancake syrup.Where to get them: California is making some of the best olive oil in the world right now; here is my favorite. The best balsamic I know is the one created by Italian superchef Massimo Bottura for export. It’s wildly expensive, but a drop changes a dish — and the way you think of balsamic vinegar.Fresh mozzarella. I’ve written about this before.
But I never tire of paying homage to good mutz. It’s irreplaceable, but
so hard to find that it’s irresponsible of me to bring it up.Where to get it:Sigh.
I don’t pretend that this is a complete list of everything you need
to eat before you die. There is no such list; there are always more
things worth eating. If you’ve eaten everything and don’t have anything
else you want to try, don’t worry about any list: you’re basically dead
already.
(MORE:Big Gulp: Why Juice Fasting Makes You Feel Healthy)

Ozersky, author of The Hamburger: A History, is a James Beard Award—winning food writer. The views expressed are solely his own.

Veggie Omelet with Berries

Plenty of studies show that eating breakfast is good for your health. It can help maintain weight loss and even reduce lead poisoning. But a 2011 report found that 31 million Americans still don’t eat in the morning.

Oz Garcia, celebrity nutritionist for stars like
Hilary Swank and Naomi Campbell, never skips breakfast. His meal of
choice: an omelet made with two organic egg whites, one egg yolk,
spinach and tomatoes, with a half-cup of organic berries on the side.
“This breakfast has a lot of protein and will help keep you feeling full
throughout the day. The omelet contains a healthy serving of vegetables
and the berries are a terrific antioxidant,” says Garcia.
Eating protein in the morning can reduce cravings and hunger throughout the day, according to a 2011 study published in Obesity.
“Incorporating a healthy breakfast containing protein-rich foods can be
a simple strategy for people to stay satisfied longer, and therefore,
be less prone to snacking,” study author Heather Leidy, assistant
professor in the department of nutrition and exercise physiology at the
University of Missouri, said in a statement at the time.

Oats with Milk

Cristina Rivera, a registered
dietician and president of Nutrition In Motion PC, relies on breakfast
for training recovery. “I work long hours and I am training for a
marathon, I rely on this meal to provide me with the energy I need to
get me through days jam-packed with work and intense training regimes,”
says Rivera.
According to Rivera, our muscles and brain need fuel immediately upon
waking. Neglecting to eat breakfast will force your body to break down
glycogen — stored energy in muscle used during exercise — so it can fuel
up. This results in less available energy and can lead to sugar
cravings later in the day.
(MORE: Eating a Big Breakfast Doesn’t Cut Daily Calories)
“For an athlete, this translates into an inability to perform to your
potential and an increased risk of injury. For those who are weight
conscious, eating within an hour of waking up stimulates metabolism,
which means you burn more calories throughout the day,” says Rivera.
After eating a small snack and going on a run, Rivera cooks herself a
breakfast of a half-cup of oats with 1 cup of skim milk. “Raw oats are
minimally processed, contain energy producing B vitamins and are a great
source of carbohydrates to replenish muscle glycogen after a run. I
make it with milk instead of water so that I have the added benefits of
calcium, vitamin D and protein to aide in muscle growth and recovery.”
(MORE: 5 Ways to Get Oatmeal in Your Diet, Deliciously)
For flavor, she adds cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of dried cranberries and
2 tablespoons of sliced raw almonds to her oatmeal. “The cranberries
are loaded with antioxidants, which counteract oxidative stress that
happens to your body during an intense workout,” says Rivera. “Almonds
are high in omega-3s, which is a heart-healthy fat known for its
anti-inflammatory properties. Adding foods rich in omega-3s to your
recovery meal decreases muscle soreness and decreases your risk of
injury.”

Sprouted Grain Toast with Almond Butter

Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian and author of The Flexitarian Diet, starts her day with sprouted grain toast with almond butter, sliced apples and coffee.
What’s sprouted grain bread, you ask? The name refers to how the
bread is prepared: grains are soaked in water and allowed to “sprout”
before they are added to other ingredients. It’s harder to find than
standard bread, but you can usually get it at grocery stores that
specialize in organic foods like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s.
“Sprouted grain toast has more absorbable minerals than standard
whole grain bread,” says Blatner. “The almond butter gives healthy fat
and protein while the sliced apple adds wholesome nutrition and volume
for fullness. It’s a good source of fiber and other disease-fighting
plant compounds. The coffee in moderation offers mental morning
clarity.”
Blatner recommends about 16 ounces a day of coffee to decrease the risk of diseases like diabetes and dementia. Studies have also found that coffee drinkers may be less depressed and have a lower risk of cancer, including fatal prostate cancer, and a smaller chance of stroke.

Fresh Fruit and a Glass of Milk

“Breakfast for me is an absolute must,” says Keith Ayoob,
a registered dietitian and associate professor of pediatrics at the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Ayoob always eats
fresh fruit, followed by a glass of low-fat or fat-free milk. Later in
the morning, he eats protein — usually Greek yogurt or a hard-boiled egg
— and whole-grain cereal.
“The extra protein keeps my appetite quiet for the morning,” says
Ayoob. “Cereal and milk are great, but I like additional lean protein in
the morning. Sometimes the cereal tops off the yogurt, or is put into a
Ziploc bag and taken to work with me as a mid-morning snack.”
(MORE: Beauty in a Bowl? Eating Fruits and Veggies May Improve Skin Tone)
Ayoob also indulges his sweet tooth in the morning — but only a
little. “The milk is usually turned into my homemade hot chocolate. I’ll
make it with lots of unsweetened cocoa powder, and a sugar substitute,
like stevia. I’m not anti-sugar, but I’d prefer to spend my calories
elsewhere when I can — like on a little dark chocolate later in the
afternoon.”
Having something sweet in the morning isn’t necessarily a no-no. A recent study
found that eating dessert in the morning can help dieters lose weight.
The trick is in the timing: in the morning, the body’s metabolism is
most active and there is still an opportunity to work off the calories
later. During the 32-week study, participants who consumed a 600-calorie
breakfast that included a sweet — like chocolate — lost an average of
40 lbs. more per person than their peers who ate a 300-calorie breakfast
without dessert; both groups ate very low-calorie diets overall. As
always, moderation is key.

Greek Yogurt, Walnut and Banana Blend

Jay Cardiello, founder of the workout system JCORE and trainer for The Real Housewives of New York and 50 Cent, likes variety in the morning, but one of his go-tos is a blend of Greek yogurt, walnuts, cinnamon and banana.
Cardiello starts with a 6-ounce serving of Greek yogurt for protein.
“I am getting approximately 15 to 20 grams of protein, which will help
me feel more satisfied throughout the morning,” says Cardiello. “Greek
yogurt is mostly made up of the slow-digesting casein protein, so my
body is constantly being fed, which is important for the long mornings
where I may not be able to grab a healthy snack.”
(MORE: Omega-3s May Guard Against Brain Decline)
Next, he adds a handful of walnuts, one banana and a little cinnamon.
“Walnuts are a wonderful source of omega-3 and help decrease my
cholesterol levels,” says Cardiello. “Bananas provide energy because
they contain carbohydrates, fats and protein. I sometimes eat a banana
as a pre-workout or afternoon snack when I am starting to fatigue.”
In 2011, researchers from the University of Scranton in
Pennsylvania found that walnuts contain more healthy antioxidants than
any other nut. “A handful of walnuts contains almost twice as much
antioxidants as an equivalent amount of any other commonly consumed nut.
But unfortunately, people don’t eat a lot of them,” said study author
Dr. Joe Vinson in a statement.

Fruit-and-Veggie Smoothie

Kim Snyder, celebrity nutritionist for Drew Barrymore and Channing Tatum and author of The Beauty Detox Solution, starts
off her day the same way as her clients, with a “Glowing Green
Smoothie” made with all organic lettuce, celery, spinach, apples, pears,
bananas and lemon.
“It’s pure fuel that gives you the energy you need to go shooting
into your day, supplying your body with essential vitamins, minerals,
enzymes, antioxidants and fiber,” says Snyder. “Because it’s blended, it
efficiently nourishes your body while taking very little energy for
digestion. One 16- to 20-ounce serving contains more leafy green
vegetables that most people get in a week…or a month. It’s made up of
about 70% green vegetables and 30% fruit, so it’s as delicious as it is
energizing and beautifying.”

Oatmeal with Cottage Cheese

Keri Gans, a registered dietitian in New York City and author of The Small Change Diet,
eats the same breakfast every morning: quick-cooking oatmeal made with
nonfat milk, topped with low fat cottage cheese, chia seeds and
cinnamon.
“I get fiber from the oats, protein and calcium from the milk and
cottage cheese, and healthy fat from the seeds. The combo keeps me
satisfied until lunch,” says Gans.
Gans makes sure she gets her dairy in the morning because “it’s an
opportunity for calcium and both are good sources of protein which help
keep me full.”
Dieters tend to cut back on diary products, but studies have shown a moderate consumption of dairy calcium and vitamin D won’t stymie weight loss goals. Government guidelines also recommend
that Americans increase their intake of fat-free or low-fat milk and
milk products, such as milk, yogurt and cheese, or fortified soy
beverages.